Split verdict in child abuse case

WEST CHESTER » A Chester County jury has found the father of three young children guilty of assaulting one of his sons during a weekend visit to his home, but acquitted him on other counts involving another.

On Sept. 17, after about seven hours of deliberations, the panel of seven women and five men returned with their verdict in Judge Ann Marie Wheatcraft’s courtroom after hearings two days of testimony in the case against Lamar De-Shawn Addison.

They pronounced Addison guilty on a count of aggravated assault for the injuries suffered by his then-2-year-old son, rejecting his claim that the child had been injured in falling from a toy box onto a toy truck.

But they ruled Addison not guilty on other counts of aggravated assault involving the 2-year-old and his younger bother, who was 1 year old at the time of the alleged assaults in 2018, as well as on charges of endangering the welfare of children.

Addison, 31, of Coatesville, remains free on bail pending sentencing, which Wheatcraft said would take place later this year. She ordered a pre-sentencing report into his background to assist her in sentencing.

Addison testified in his own defense in the case, saying that he had no other explanation for the injuries to the two children, injuries that included bruising to the ears and face of the 2-year-old and a broken collarbone for the 1-year-old. Both children have essentially recovered from their injuries.

The prosecution, led by Deputy District Attorney Erin O’Brien of the D.A.’s Child Abuse Unit and Assistant District Attorney Daniel Hollander, had relied mostly on circumstantial evidence in their case, since there were no adult witnesses to the events that led to his ar

rest.

Addison had admitted that he was the only adult caring for his three children the weekend that their mother dropped them off at his Lumber Street apartment for a regular visit. Although the pediatric doctor who examined the two children reported that the injuries did not match what would have happened from a fall or the other contact Addison described, she could not conclusively identify their injuries as having come from a physical assault.

The prosecution’s theory of the case, based on interviews with the children’s mother, Shaquana Miles, texts messages that Addison sent her, and a taped conversation between Miles and Addison, is that Addison became stressed the night of the custody visit and lashed out at the two youngest children.

But in Addison’s defense, Assistant Public Defender Sameer Barkawi questioned why the charges were not brought against Addison for more than nine months after Miles first brought the matter to the attention of the Chester County Detectives, and why police had not interviewed the eldest of the children, who could have told them what he might have seen that weekend. He also noted that the prosecution’s expert could not testify when the youngest had suffered the broken collar bone.

Miles first reported the injuries to her 2-year-old on June 25, 2018 a day after taking the child to the hospital. She said she had sent the children to stay with Addison on June 23, 2018, and that he returned them the next day. While he was caring for them, he texted her to say that the 2-year-old had fallen on top of a toy and hurt himself. He then later sent a text saying he was “stressed out,” “thinking of leaving town,” and that he might kill someone, said Hollander in his opening to the jury.

On July 3, 2018, when Miles and Addison spoke about the injuries, he was unable to explain how the fall could have resulted in bruising to his face and ears, and said that when he was giving the 1-year-old a bath the baby slipped and he had to grab him “up real fast by his arm.”

In her examination, Dr. Stephanie Anne Deutsch of A.I. DuPont Hospital said the 2-year-old’s injuries were “atypical for accidental injury,” county Detective Gerald Davis wrote in his criminal complaint. The broken collar bone, she said, did not fit with Addison’s explanation of grabbing him by the arm.